Young Drake

Gallery: AvianPosted October 12, 2012116 views3 comments

I believe this to be a young drake, with the mottled head and smaller body than the other male that was in this pond. Please correct me if I am wrong!

Here it was being chased away by the larger drake and took off in a short flight run. D90, ISO-640, 1/320th, f-8.0, 500mm. The image is rather soft at that shutter speed, it was very overcast on a roadside stop, so no larger image. Thanks for any C&C.

Comments

3 comments

Comment posted by Nate Chappell on October 12, 2012 at 4:15 PM

Hi Bill,
This might be a young bird but more likely I think is that it's a molting adult male Mallard. I like the action you captured here and the fall foliage in the background. The shutter speed is a little slow for flight photography but from your techs it looks like there wasn't much you could, already being at iso 640.

Registered on February 1, 2006, 1158 Posts, 19528 Comments

Comment posted by Jim DeWitt on October 13, 2012 at 2:00 AM

Adult male molting from eclipse to breeding plumage, Bill. Looks like you had limited light, but maybe you could have dropped the aperture a bit and gotten a faster shutter speed?

Registered on August 28, 2006, 1240 Posts, 8506 Comments

Comment posted by John Tobias on October 14, 2012 at 8:02 AM

Bill, IMHO you caught the action of the take off very well. Looks sharp enough to me. Not much you could have done about it, but the tree behind the duck is distracting. Looks like you are getting along well with the big lens. Thanks for sharing.

Registered on September 12, 2009, 2120 Posts, 6455 Comments